David Axelrod joins NBC, MSNBC

2/19/13 10:22 AM EST

David Axelrod, the former White House senior advisor and senior strategist for President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, has joined NBC News and MSNBC as a senior political analyst, the networks announced today.

Axelrod is NBC Universal's second major hire from the Obama administration this month: Last week, POLITICO learned that Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary and senior adviser to President Obama's 2012 campaign, had also joined the networks as a contributor. Like Gibbs, Axelrod will appear across the networks' programming.

The move of two high-level Obama staffers to the NBC family is notable, but not without precedent. In 2008, Fox News hired George W. Bush's senior advisor Karl Rove, and almost all the cable and broadcast channels feature contributors who formerly served as administration hands or campaign operatives.